


cold be hand and heart and bone

by kimaracretak



Series: the starlit cold morning where the dreams never last [4]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Barrow-downs, F/F, Horror, Horrorterrors - Freeform, Nazgûl | Ringwraiths, Old Forest (Tolkien), of horrorterrors and hungry hills and the ladies who live there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6112522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(in the black wind the stars shall die / and still be gold here let them lie): Those who do not belong to this world can still make it grow darker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold be hand and heart and bone

**Author's Note:**

> written for silmladylove's femslash february drabbletag : "goldberry/lady of the blue brooch, 'their hair twisted behind them with mud and gold'"
> 
> title + summary quote from the barrow-wights' chant

The Withywindle runs unseasonably cold three days before her arrival, and this is the only warning Goldberry has. Had she paid closer mind she might have known before, but why should she have kept watch for _this_ when there's sweet summer storm cloud swirling overhead, when the hobbits to the south are sleeping quietly and the trees all around her keep their secrets and stand watch.

But the day the water runs cold around her she sinks to her knees in the river, digs her fingers deep into the rippling mud of the riverbed and through her veins she feels their approach: _she is here she is coming she is wanting she is bringing others._  Goldberry shivers in anticipation and smiles, small and secret and _hungry_.

 

*

 

The lady's current path takes her too far from the river for Goldberry to meet, but that matters not -- diverting the waters, changing her path, is a simple matter. For three days she sits beside the river and doesn't move except to breathe, watching the lady and her guests move with a speed granted them by something much more than a mere human or elf.

When she does arrive, Goldberry is there to meet her before the Downs, drawing strength and presence from the waters. The lady herself seems hardly there are at all: crowned in silver and her cloak pinned with a brooch as blue as Goldberry's river, she is something created for this world that has no place in it. By rights the black she wears should make her stand out stark against the fields and sky, but the shimmers around the tattered edges of her robes make it seem rather more that she's about to dissolve into the landscape.

"You bring me guests," Goldberry says, and her smile shows too many teeth.

The lady's face is invisible behind her helm, but it takes little effort for Goldberry to imagine a similar smile twisting her lips. "They are not mine to bring, nor is this land yours to host us in."

"The land," Goldberry tilts her head, concedes the point. "The land, no." The lady's horse tosses its mane impatiently, dances closer to the river and rears back immediately when the water touches its hoof. The lady holds on with ease born of long familiarity. "But the waters are mine to keep and love and command, and those you may not cross without my leave."

The horse settles; the lady raises her helm. Something -- _terror_ , Goldberry thinks, and licks her lips -- ripples through the host at the lady's back, though they do not see what she does: two faces, one dead and one alive and both horrible in their beauty blurring against each other until the lady settles on the living face. Goldberry's smile grows wider.

"Fear not," the lady says, and the space where she leaves off any form of address falls to the ground between them, nearly a visible thing. "There is no water where I am going."

Goldberry stretches herself up, balances on the very tips of her toes and extends her arms, lets the sheets of water tumble down her skin and back to meet the river, where it crashes with the joy of meeting a long-lost friend. "Very little is where it is supposed to be, these days."

It's a threat and a promise, and Goldberry watches as the lady grabs the wrist of one of her men who dares to take the smallest step forward. Hears the man's bones crack under her grip, the scream of pain he doesn't give voice to. When she releases him, he skitters to the back of the host.

The lady dismounts, then, and though her edges still flicker uneasily this form is _tall_ , and Goldberry has to look up the see into her shadowed eyes. "I will belong everywhere, soon enough," she says. "And then I will come back for you, and solve you, and see what will tempt you to come with me."

Quicker than breathing she's back on her horse, leading her host back to the Barrow-Downs as Goldberry's laughter echoes behind them. The lady will not solve Goldberry, not when Goldberry is still such a delightful puzzle to herself. But the lady will return, yes, this Goldberry _does_ believe, and she lies down in the river and draws it back towards the forest and waits.

 

*

 

Goldberry does not sleep but she dreams of a woman with pale pale skin stretched too thin over her skull, a woman with a brooch the colour of the river and long long hair the colour of the mud of the river-bed that whips around her shoulders and fades into the half life of an in between world.

Always together, in her dreams, cold lips pressed against cold lips.

Always the world burns with an unearthly flame that her living waters meet and curl around and never quite put out.

Always they laugh, in her dreams.

The lady does not sleep but she dreams of a woman with brown brown skin stretched too thin over her skull, a woman with eyes that weep cold clear river water and long long hair more golden than the sun that catches the light and swallows it whole into the ancient light of a forgotten world.

Always together, in her dreams, bare limbs twined with bare limbs.

Always the world drowns under unearthly waves that her living fires dance across and spread and never quite dissipate.

Always they laugh, in her dreams.


End file.
